Message In A Bottle
by Chris7221
Summary: John Crichton just wanted to get a message home. But it couldn't just be a simple message, could it? Stuck on an unfamiliar ship, Colonel Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran must figure out how to undo what the lost astronaut did- and not get killed in the process. Set mid-S4 Farscape and Post-EATG Stargate. ON HIATUS
1. Very Lost

Against my better judgement, I figured I could do a better Farscape/Stargate cross than the ones that have been done before. It's been a while since I've written anything Stargate, the whole thing is pretty rough, and I can't promise a decent update schedule, but in the words of Peter Chimaera, I decide to write anyway.

There are two things I should explain.

First, I'm aware that it was IASA rather than NASA. This was originally done to avoid the strings that came with depicting the actual space agency. I changed it to NASA because it fits better, both with the cross and because Farscape was implied to be an American program.

Second, the timeframe and continuity. On the Farscape side, it's set some time in the middle of Season 4, before Kansas and Terra Firma. I haven't seen the comics, so very little of that backstory will be in it, and some will be changed to make the cross work. In Stargate, it's set well after the end of the series. I haven't read the Atlantis novels, but I'm hoping to incorporate the broad strokes of them. SGU? I'm going to more or less pretend it never happened.

So what happened to the ten years in between? Well, remember that wormholes go through space and time...

* * *

 **Chapter 1: We're Very Lost**

 **1999**

To say Commander John Crichton was nervous was a vast understatement. Wedged into the cramped confines of the Farscape-1 module, floating hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth, he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

It was far from an unfounded fear. Space travel was dangerous, and what he was about to do even more so than normal. Crichton was testing a theory that he had developed with Douglas Knox, a NASA scientist; a manned spacecraft could overcome atmospheric drag and accelerate quickly to incredible speeds. His partner was his childhood friend and Crichton himself the son of a well-known astronaut, making the Farscape mission a potential PR coup in addition to a scientific one.

"Canaveral - this is Farscape 1, I am free and flying." Crichton's tone was jovial, but focused and professional. "Are you with me there, Momma Bear?"

"Oh yeah Farscape, I'm reading you loud and clear," Douglas Knox- DK to his friends- replied from the ground station on Earth.

Satisfied that everything was properly prepared, Crichton reached down and flipped one of the many switches lining the inside of his module. "Authorizing flight computer to initiate ignition sequencing – now."

"Roger Farscape, you are go for insertion procedure." The statement actually confused Crichton somewhat- he'd assumed he had already been cleared.

Controlled with millisecond precision by the sophisticated avionics inside the module, the engines fired, pushing Crichton back into his seat at several times the force of gravity. "Approaching maximum velocity in 21 seconds. 18 seconds... Nearing critical altitude phase."

"Farscape 1 - hold a moment-" That was about the last thing Crichton wanted to hear. Nearing a critical phase of his flight, an abort would be dangerous or even impossible.

"Hold? Canaveral – what?" Reaching down again, Crichton flipped another switch, this one labelled ABORT ARM. He was now a button press away from aborting the manoeuvre, yet still hesitated.

"Meteorology reports some kind of electromagnetic wave," DK told him. The transmission was staticy and cut out several times. "Repeat - some kind of wave. John do you read me?"

Crichton could barely see out his windows by this point, his module covered in some kind of blue corona. His quick mind guessed that this might have something to do with the transmission problems. His own transmission was nearly unintelligible. "Yeah - I read you!"

"John, abort!" DK urged from the ground. He watched helplessly as the readings got stronger and telemetry from the spacecraft cut out completely.

"CANAVERAL?" Crichton shouted, the transmission almost completely garbled. It was the last transmission from the Farscape module. In a bright blue flash of light, the module disappeared from view. Scientists would later theorize that this was, in fact, a wormhole, but all Mission Control knew at that time was that their module had disappeared.

Farscape One was gone. The experiment had failed, and it had taken one of NASA's top astronauts with it. Although bigger events would soon overshadow the failure of the Farscape Project, it would remain one of the darkest days in the history of the space agency.

 **2013**

It was relatively calm in Moya's maintenance bay. There were no crates full of bugs or alien invaders, only a small piece of alien technology that had very lost Earth astronaut John Crichton very excited.

Which, given their record, probably meant that things would get significantly less calm any moment. Many of the crew had joked that John was a trouble magnet.

The device itself sat on the broken remnants of what passed for a packing crate in Tormented Space. Part of it was a base shaped like a very flattened egg, with the diameter of a large serving platter. Although it appeared almost organic, the satin grey metal belied its technological nature. A bundle of solid, spindly tubes rose from its centre to a sharply cut bluish crystal.

"You really think that this can contact Earth?" former Peacekeeper Officer Aeryn Sun asked, eyeing the device skeptically.

"That's what he said it would do," Crichton told her. He held up a pair of smooth stones, one in each hand. "Just take the stones and stick them into the machine. Simple."

"Hmph! I think some moron got swindled!" Rygel barked at them, passing in his hovering chair. "That trader is probably laughing about it right now!"

The human and the sebacean ignored him. "Did he say anything about how this works?"

"Nope," Crichton replied. Seeing the frown on his maybe-girlfriend's face, he added, "Hey, you know more about this stuff than I do. It probably lights up a hologram or something."

Aeryn raised an eyebrow. "And what would it connect to at the other end?"

"The red phone in the President's office?" Crichton shrugged. "I don't know. And I don't think we will know until we try." He handed her one of the stones.

She handed it back. "Oh, no, it's your machine, you put the stones in!"

He pushed the stone back into her hand. "Can't. The seller was very specific about that. It's gotta be two different people putting both stones in at the same time."

"Why don't you get D'Argo to do it?"

"Because D'Argo is taking Chiana for a joyride on Lo'lah," Crichton reminded her. "And I don't want to wait until tomorrow for them to come back."

"Why not Rygel or Sikozu?" Getting a glare in reply, she added, "Taking point."

"I think you mean point taken," Crichton corrected.

She considered it for a moment, then nodded. "That makes a lot more sense, actually."

Crichton held up the stone. "So, are we going to do this or not?"

"Let's finish this quickly," Aeryn agreed reluctantly.

Crichton smirked, then lead her toward the device. "On three, put that stone into this slot."

"Got it."

"One, two, three!"

The two stumbled, and initially it had appeared as if nothing happened except for a brief loss of coordination. However, the minds of John Crichton and Aeryn Sun no longer inhabited their bodies.

Colonel Cameron Mitchell experienced a brief moment of extreme and difficult to describe disorientation. One moment, he was about to start a meeting about the future of SG-1. The next, he was somewhere completely different. Completely alien. An odd sense of movement gave the location away as some kind of spaceship, and the place felt alive, but it didn't look Wraith.

It briefly occurred to him that his job was so strange that he didn't even consider suddenly being on an alien spaceship that odd anymore. Just... annoying.

"What the hell happened?" Looking around at the strange, organic-looking space, his eyes soon fell on the device sitting beside them. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"

"What happened?" a very familiar woman asked.

"Vala?" Looking closely, he noticed a few differences between the woman and his teammate. Still, they were slight, to the point of the resemblance being creepy. "Eh... you're not Vala, are you? Shoot. Listen, I'm-"

"Actually, I am," Vala in Aeryn's body replied. She noticed the device almost immediately. "Oh, don't tell me it's one of _those_ things again."

"Yeah, it's one of those Ancient body-swapping communication devices." He sighed. "Not how I imagined starting my day."

"You're Colonel Mitchell?" Vala guessed. She wondered if the device was having some effect on their appearances, because the man in front of her looked exactly like her teammate.

"Yeah, I am." He spread his arms and smiled thinly. "How do I look?"

"Well, you look like... you," she replied. Then she looked closer. Different hair, slightly different complexion, and a scar that she knew he didn't have. "Well, almost. You look very similar, but I can tell that body is not Colonel Mitchell. What about me?"

"A meaner looking version of you," he answered. "Either we ended up in the most similar-looking people to us in the entire universe, or this device is messing with our-"

"Crichton, are you alright?" a disembodied voice spoke, cutting him off. Mitchell turned to the source of the voice, a hologram of a crustacean-looking creature. "I have detected a power surge in the maintenance bay."

Mitchell stopped, pausing in thought. He muttered, "Crichton... no way."

"What?" Vala asked, equal parts confused and curious. "Who's Crichton? You know who we're in?"

"John Crichton, my cousin, looked a lot like me," Mitchell replied darkly. "Except he died over ten years ago."


	2. Little Green Guys

I decided to do both sides of the coin and I have a tentative arc for each, so this fic may be longer than six chapters after all.

I know short chapters and slow updates don't go well together, but that's all I can manage these days. I have too many projects. I'm trying to alternate this story and Convergence, but I suspect the group of people that reads both is pretty small.

This is a bit rough. Blame procrastination. I felt it would be better to just give it a quick once-over and release it instead of obsessing until it never comes out.

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Where They Keep The Little Green Guys**

John Crichton couldn't describe the sensation. One moment, he was in the maintenance bay on Moya, pushing a strange alien stone into a strange alien device. As odd as it sounded, that wasn't unusual for him. The next moment, he was sitting at a conference table, with Aeryn at his left and two unfamiliar men in military uniforms to his right. That _was_ unusual. It was very disorienting, that was for sure.

Shaking off the sensation, he peered closely at the uniforms. United States Air Force. So this really was Earth, or a decent simulation of it, anyway. The huge "Stargate Command" crest on the wall, however, wasn't something he'd ever seen before. Maybe this was where they kept the little green guys. He used to regard that kind of thing with total disbelief, but that was before he ended up shot across-

A concerned-looking man with rectangular glasses waved at him, grabbing his attention. "Are you okay, Colonel? You kind of zoned out there."

 _Colonel? What_ did _that thing do?_ Crichton waved it off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about... stuff."

"We knew this was going to happen eventually," the man continued. "I mean, ever since Sam took command of the Hammond, that's kinda left a hole in SG-1."

Aeryn leaned over and whispered, "What's happening?"

He replied quietly, "No idea. Play along."

The other man, a dark-skinned man with short hair and some kind of gold tattoo on his forehead, commented, "I believe we should begin, lest we attract the wrath of General O'Neill."

Realizing that the others had been waiting for him, Crichton grabbed the folder in front of him and opened it. "Sure, let's get started. Last thing we want to do is piss off the General, right?"

They began flipping through the folders. He did the same, but his mind was on everything but the actual candidates. Apparently, the other people in the room thought himself and Aeryn had always been here. So, was this a simulation, an alternate reality, or a body swap? He'd been through two of those before and he was pretty sure the third was at least theoretically possible.

Even if it was theoretically impossible, it could still happen. That was something he had learned the hard way.

Crichton silently hoped that one of the others would offer a suggestion that he could blindly agree with. The sooner the meeting finished, the better. A minute later, he got that wish. The man with the glasses mentioned, "Huh, I didn't know Hailey was a candidate."

He flipped to the page in question. It was a military profile of Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey, who was apparently a physicist with the Air Force. She'd had previous experience with the so-called Stargate program, a list of commendations- and a paper on the Farscape project. He muttered to himself, "Oh yeah, definitely Earth."

The glasses-man looked up. "Huh?"

"I said, definitely her," he covered. He had no idea what they were looking for or if she was even a decent candidate, but that could wait. Right now, he needed to figure out who he was supposed to be, if this really was Earth, and where to go from that. Seeing Farscape mentioned gave him a surge of hope, but...

The man with the golden tattoo turned to Aeryn. "Do you have any thoughts on the matter, Vala Mal Doran?"

"Not really," she replied evasively. Aeryn was confused beyond belief, apparently being someone completely different to these people, but kept up the act. Oddly, though she seemed to be speaking her own language, the humans seemed to understand what she was saying. Where were they, really? What had that device done? What had Crichton got them into this time?

Crichton stood up. "So, are we done?"

"Yeah... do you want me to take these back to General Landry?" the glasses-man asked.

"Sure." And with that, the most confusing meeting Crichton had ever experienced adjourned. He motioned to Aeryn, then quickly stepped out of the room.

"Is this Earth?" Aeryn asked quietly, following the human down a drab grey corridor. A few humans- she assumed they were humans- occupied the corridor, all dressed in similar uniforms to their own.

Crichton held up a hand for silence before leading her into a dark and empty side passage. He looked around to make sure they were alone before answering. "I think so, but I have no idea where we are."

"It could be an illusion." She knew that Crichton had experienced delusions of returning to Earth before.

"I know," he replied wryly.

A chilling possibility entered her mind. She took a step back, reaching for a pulse pistol that wasn't there. "What if you're not real?"

He held up his hands. "Whoa! I'm real. We put in the stones together, we arrived here together. Whatever happened, it happened to both of us. Look, it's me, Aeryn."

The man looked a lot like Crichton, but she couldn't be sure. Something seemed off, but... "I can barely frelling see!"

That surprised the astronaut. "What? Hold on, I can see fine! Why would you be having problems?"

"Maybe the machine was designed for humans and not Sebaceans, whatever it does," she suggested. "Although it would be the first time I've seen anything that worked better with your species-"

"Hey!"

Aeryn changed topics. "Do you have any idea what that machine did?"

"Well, it could be creating this illusion for both of us. Chiana had a little thing that was kind of like that. Don't ask." He paused. "Or maybe we've switched bodies, interstellar Freaky Friday style."

She shook her head. "You look like Crichton, I think."

"And you look like Aeryn. Maybe it's the machine. If this is a simulation, why not? If it's swapped bodies, maybe it's messed with our heads too. We don't know," he concluded. "Look, just act natural for now. We'll figure it out."

She raised an eyebrow. "Act natural?"

"Pretend you're human," Crichton clarified.

"So, I should jump into situations without thinking about the consequences and speak in a way that makes no sense to anyone but myself?"

He ignored the thinly veiled insult. "...pretty much-"

"Unscheduled offworld activation!" a loud voice announced over a speaker above their heads.

"Are you sure this is Earth?"

* * *

Daniel Jackson stood beside Teal'c in the control room, watching a dirty and haggard SG-6 stumble through the gate. He was concerned for the team and knew there was no doubt an important story to their predicament, but his mind was elsewhere. He checked his watch impatiently. "They're usually here by now."

The stoic warrior replied in a factual, neutral tone. "Perhaps Colonel Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran are otherwise occupied."

If it were anyone else, Daniel would have pointed out the double entendre, but he knew the stoic warrior didn't use such turns of phrase... usually. He chewed his lip. "Maybe. I dunno, they seemed kind of off today."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, Cam seemed kind of distracted, like he didn't really care much about the meeting. I know he hates meetings, but not that much, and this is the future of SG-1 we're talking about. And Vala wouldn't even talk to me, she looks pissed off and she kind of just disappeared."

"It is concerning," Teal'c admitted. "However, I believe they may simply be having an _off day_."

"Yeah, I guess we all have those sometimes." But it just didn't feel right. He _knew_ these people, and the Cam and Vala this morning weren't themselves. It was just an off day, nothing more to it, right?

Given the nature of their job, there probably _was_ more to it. He'd look into it.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Aeryn asked quietly as they traversed the busy, cramped corridors of the military base. It felt almost like the starships that she had once called home, but Crichton told her they were probably underground.

It seemed to be a US Air Force base, but the mention of an _unauthorized offworld activation_ had thrown Crichton for a loop. He'd immediately started thinking about the little green guys and UFO conspiracy stories. It was absurd- but then again, he'd been part of someone else's, hadn't he?

They'd caught mention of _Goa'uld_ , _Atlantis_ , and the Stargate that the program was apparently named for, but without context it meant little. He _had_ heard wormholes mentioned, which made him both excited and nervous. Judging by the meeting and the deferential looks they kept getting, they seemed to be fairly up in this organization, so they couldn't just ask lest it give away their cover.

Of course, that was all provided this really was Earth and not some elaborate trick. _What was that about_ fool me thrice _?_

"I'm looking for something that will tell us where the hell we are," Crichton replied, glancing at a sign on the wall above them. "Or at least where we're supposed to be." He noticed a man dirty overalls walking by with a newspaper in hand and raced to catch up. "Hey, can I borrow that?"

Confused, the airman blinked before reluctantly handing it over. "Here you go, sir."

"Thanks, Sergeant," Crichton replied, glancing briefly at his rank insignia. He continued down the corridor before turning down another dusty side passage. "Damn!"

"What?"

He smacked the paper. "2013. You've got to be frelling kidding me!"

"Why?"

"I left in 1999. It's been four years since I came through that wormhole."

"Does Earth count cycles differently?" Aeryn asked.

He shook his head. "Not that differently. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless... I don't know." He sighed. "Something to do with wormholes. I had it, then I lost it. Don't worry about it, I'll lose my mind pondering it later."

"Well, if we're going to blend in, we need to know more about Colonel Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran." Aeryn suggested, her mind turning back to practical matters.

"I know. I've been thinking about that. The thing is, it would be really weird to ask for our own personnel files- or each others because we might have known each other for years. We could try the computers, except I don't know the Colonel's password, so that's no good." He shook his head before motioning back toward the corridor. "I'm hungry. Let's get lunch."

"Lunch?" She arced an eyebrow. "Of course you want to eat even at a time like this."

"Why not? We need to fit in, Aeryn, and humans eat when they're hungry. Sebaceans eat, don't they?"

"Under stress, we suppress our hunger," she answered curtly.

"Rhetorical question. Come on, let's go find the cafeteria."


End file.
